So then, for a while now I've been posting scattered drawings and ramblings about growing up and living in, and leaving Labrador. I will continue to do so, but not today. Today I am on day 3 of being stuck in Toronto enroute to St. John's but delayed due to the famous (infamous?) winter weather. It's only a few days off of Christmas and I'm hoping to get home tonight.Sitting here in the Airport Sheraton I'm amusing myself. I've come on the idea, perhaps from a memory from childhood to post some chapters of a novel I've been working on every now and then. I seem to remember when I was a child that many stories were presented in periodicals as installments. The story is established but the rewrite is in progress. Perhaps someday a version of this story may be on the bookshelves...that is if bookshelves still exist in the future!I hope those who read these first two chapters will leave a comment, or at least find some enjoyment from it to brighten up your day.​Snowden. 19 Dec 2016.

Chapter One – In the BeginningThe Northern Lights danced their merry way across the black and starlit sky. Far off in the distance the timber wolves howled at the splendor as the rutting caribou shivered at the sound. Small birds snuggled tightly together in an effort to comfort one another, protection from the monsters of the night. A large black figure glided wearily between the moon and the surface of the earth. A larger black shadow followed the contours of the new snow in hot pursuit over the frozen lakes and forest. Halting finally in the toppermost of the branches of a stately black spruce and catching its breath the figure began to whistle.The Northern Lights danced their merry dance across the black and starlit sky, but a little more intensely this time. They shot towards Polaris, the dog star, then flashed towards the horizon then back to Polaris and so on, in a rhythm the locals call ‘Tikkitak’. To a casual observer it would seem that the aurora were sending messages to some unknown receiver. To that unknown receiver, the message was clear.Let Go.The crow whistled again and loosened his grip, dropping his precious cargo down, down, down into the ink of the Labrador night. He watched as it sparkled and drifted this way and that, hovering then dipping, then finally easing into the light coming from the window of the building below. The crow whistled once more then closed his eyes and the universe went dark.

Chapter Two – Just After the Beginning“Myra, what do you suppose we should call this child of ours?” The man standing at the window was watching the sky more out of habit than interest. He was unaccustomed to idleness and his posture showed it as he shuffled from one corner of the hospital room to the other, eyes flickering on the sterile furnishings and trappings of the place. “How do you feel about ‘Hospital Boy’”?“Chesley, don’t be silly” Myra chuckled “Maybe it will be ‘Hospital Girl’…we have no idea what this baby is.” she said as she raised herself out of the cozy wooden rocker so out of place in the spotless case room. She moved to join her husband at the window. “I know you’re not fussy about being indoors for long Ches. I can tell by the way you’re chewing at the bit! You’re looking out that window like someone trying to escape or something.”The two watched as a large black crow came to light in the upper reaches of the big spruce across the parking lot. Through the closed window they could almost make out its silhouette projected on the northern lights as they danced. Then, abruptly the crow faded from sight as though swallowed by some darkness. The borealis glowed with intensity as the Myra and Chesley Pelley gazed at the sky, arm in arm, her head on his shoulder, and he just taking in the glorious vista of the Big Land’s sky. “You know what Ches?” Myra muttered into the soft curls of hair on his neck, “ That sky is so…beautiful tonight. It’s like it’s sending me a message of sorts” Myra fell silent as she felt herself transfixed by the sparkle of frost she watched weave towards her.The sparkle came through the window at her then gently drifted beneath her gown and into her womb. A warmth came over her now like she had never felt in her life. She began to smile. She felt somehow that without a doubt, this embryo, this child within her was a boy. Her smile came from so deep within her that she could not help but feel as though she was being touched by the hand of a God…or at very least the hand of something warm and special.“Aurora” she said to her husband as she fell gently into the bed behind her “I want to call him Aurora”. She then fell backwards onto the hospital bed, clutching her abdomen and shrieking in pain.Chesley called out to the nurses “Nurses!” He called out excitedly “ It’s time! She just lid down and passed out!! HELP!!!” Ches had the outward appearance now of a completely distraught husband caught totally outside of his comfort zone. Snow machines he could handle, he could even make parts for a snow mobile from a birch junk, but having babies was way beyond what the man was ready for. “Help! Nurse! Help!” Frantic now he ran into the hall of the Wilfred Jack Hospital. Relieved, he saw the nurses coming at full walk, grinning at his man weakness, tittering at his lack of control.“Don’t you worry now my son” the big burly matron with the cross of red said as she and her team of weightlifters drove him aside as they pressed into the case room, “She’s gonna be just fine. You just keep out of our way now my love”.Keeping out of the way didn’t seem to be a concern for Ches. “I couldn’t get near her if I tried” he thought as the flurry of white and stripes swooped down on his wife. “ I wouldn’t be able to wiggle past the lines of defense they’ve set up”!“ Relax Ches, I’m just Fi……..AYEENENEEE!” Myra screamed as the waves of pain contracted her into a ball, compressing her abdomen and shuddering across her entire body. “Just fine…” gasping…” It’s ok hon…I’m ARRRRARRGHGHGHGH!” …and so on. Ches eventually got used to this and for the next hour or so he watched the birthing team do their thing. His wife screamed, panted, swore, cried, laughed, and generally acted like he’d never seen her before then at last, all went quiet. A feeling passed over him like a wave of splendor…and a wave of dread. “ I’m not ready for this” he thought and then, as if on cue, he fainted.“Jaysus! What the fu-“ Ches became aware again. Two linebackers in motherly smiles hovered over him, holding something very near his nose. The linebackers giggled and sniggered between themselves. “Not ready for that were ya honey?” One of the saintly behemoths of care asked him smirking. “ That’s ok baby, we’re used to that here in Willie Jack. Lots of fathers can’t take the heat in the birthing arena. We have lots of smelling salts on hand for ye fellers.”“So that’s what it is “ Ches thought as the salts burned in his nostrils and cut a swath of stinging slime down his throat. “Ummmm…th..thanks I guess” he added “How’s Myra?” His concern for his wife seemed to light up the faces of the attending nurses and interns. They suddenly became soft and nurturing towards him as well. He could feel the love.Actually he could feel the love… and the pressure of their huge mitts as they picked him up body and bones and transported him to his wife’s bedside. “Here, honey” one of the nurses handed him a shiny stainless steel set of scissors, flattened on the bottom and bent by design, “ you can cut the cord now Chesley” the smiling angel in uniform said, pushing the scissors into his bewildered hand and guiding it to a slimed wet purpleish twisted thing that looked something like something a cat might hurl.His hand closed tight on the scissors and the vibration sent from the flesh being cut meandered its way up his arm, into his neck and deep into the regions of his brain that processed that sort of thing. A sudden spurt of blood, goop and gore and the scissors were snatched from his hands and taken to some distant tray full of other dripping stainless steel tools that would soon be on their way to a cleansing process only nurses know.Once again Chesley was bumped to the sidelines as the birthing team swooped and swooned and giggled and chortled and generally flutted (if ‘flutted’ is actually a word) about as they cleaned and scrubbed and poked and weighed the little newborn. Ches watched in tired amazement. “They’re a machine” he found himself musing “much like the insides of my snowmobile…all working together to nurture a miracle…the miracle of motion across the snow, careening in a giant slalom through the boreal forests of Labrador…”“OK Dad, you can see your baby boy now”.The sound of the moniker struck home like a baffling slap to his psyche as he grokked the true meaning of the title. ‘Dad’. “Jesus, I’m definitely not ready for this!” But curiosity gripped him and he moved as if by unseen hands to his wife’s bedside to be roughly placed in the chair. Roughly placed because those ‘unseen hands’ were actually attached to the unseen running back placing him there!Chesley looked into Myra’s eyes, felt the love and tenderness emanating from within her. He savored the glow of motherhood as it bubbled out of her entire being then, resistant no more he looked down into the eyes of his son, his first-born child, his procreation, his opus…“Cocoa”.“His eyes look like cocoa…Hershey’s cocoa. Just like the stuff I mix up to drink, only wetter.” Ches was bewildered. “ Shouldn’t I be having some kind of epiphany? Looking into the eyes of my child for the first time?! And here I am thinking of Cocoa?! Weird!”“Hasn’t he got the most beautiful big brown eyes Ches?” Myra asked as she smiled up at him from her sweat damp pillow. He did have to admit that this little bundle of gurgle was kind of cute, for a teensy purple blue pinkish critter. “ Yah hon, he’s wonderful”.The two of them looked adoringly at one another the back to the bundle. The bundle blinked owlishly then rolled one cute eye to the left, the other cute eye upwards, towards the hospital window and then stopped. The not quite yet formed pupil opened and closed and the eye blinked again. The bundle smiled then closed his eyes and burped and farted. The room erupted in laughter with the nurses, interns, mother and yes, even the father feeling the relief that comes following a perfectly healthy, normal childbirth.Outside the Wilfred Jack Hospital, the world went on in its timeless way. The wolves settled for the night and the small birds snuggled just that little bit closer against the cold, north wind. The crow, now rested took one look back at the hospital window, then spread his wings and dropped out of the treetop. Seconds later if anyone had been looking out the window they would have watched the crow rise into the heavens, wings outstretched, and swiftly disappear, unawares of a threatening shadow in pursuit. The Northern Lights of Labrador gleefully danced and sang as they felt the tune of the Merry Whistler.